How to Keep Mr. or Mrs. Right

Stay Green and Growing

Not Ripe and Rotting

Finders Keepers or Losers Weepers

People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. A companion article, How to Find Mr. or Mrs. Right, zeroed in on the key strategy for finding the right life-partner. But,
once you’ve found the right one, how do you make sure you keep him or
her for a lifetime? MSN.Com has an article entitled: The Happily-Ever-After Hall of Fame
that highlights such celebrities as Wil and Jana Smith, 12 years of
marriage, and George and Barbara Bush, 65 years, at two ends of the
spectrum. What is the bottom line secret to making the relationship
work? In my forty-year professional and forty-four year personal experience, here it is.

Stay green and growing. Fran, my wife, and I have
been married for 44 years, near divorce twice somewhere midway through,
and separated for a year each of those times. Each time it was squarely
my fault, because it took me a long time to grow up, which means that it
took me a long time to see clearly what was really driving me and what
was really important. Fran was definitely Mrs. Right, and I knew that
the first time I met her with the toilet paper rollers in her hair. The
real question was, was I Mr. Right for her. The answer is that I grew up
to be Mr. Right. So many couples think that they and their
relationships are fixed in stone when they say, “I do,” not realizing
that they have areas of immaturity and will continue to grow up, or not,
all of their lives. Evolving, growing up, maturing, becoming our
complete selves as human beings continues to happen, if we’re really
alive, every day.

Growing Up Is Never Done

The MSN article says that for
the Smith’s, good sex is the key component. Good sex is certainly a
component in a relationship, but every aware person knows that
it is not the main one at all. Good sex depends on many factors, the
most important of which is continuing to grow and evolve throughout all
of ones life, or growing apart happens, both emotionally and physically.
So, what’s the secret? What’s the formula? There definitely is one, and
it’s P=A+G², where P is permanence, A is awareness, and G² is constant
personal growth, which must be the formula for both partners. It’s
really a mistaken notion that we must work at the relationship. What we must work at is ourselves, and the relationship will fall into place naturally.

Does all this sound boring?
In practice, it certainly isn’t, because constantly growing as a person
brings with it constant excitement, because life is always new. Nothing kills a relationship faster than boredom, and boredom
is the result of sameness, predictability. When you’re changing
everyday, nothing is the same. Do couples always change at the same
rate? Fran and I didn’t; so you also have to know when to hold’um and
know when to fold’um. How do you know? By being in touch with your inner wisdom,
your innate intelligence. That part of your marvelous mind knows your
partner much better than you ever will and knows if he or she is
sincerely interested in growing as a person and is sincerely working at
it.

The Genius Within You

What is your inner wisdom and
how does it work? It is the most important part of your mind you will
ever use, and it is just waiting for you to find and use it. I strongly
suggest that you read The Whisper In Your Heart, objectively one
of the most important books ever written and that may just be your
ultimate self-help book. It tells the story of Nancy, a woman that I, as her psychotherapist, helped to heal
herself of terminal cancer by finding within her mind a special
intelligence that guided us on a five-year healing adventure that not
only cured her illness but healed my life as well. That inner wisdom,
special intelligence has become my constant companion and guides me in
learning how to continually become the complete human being I am meant
to be. Fran’s inner wisdom guided her in how to live with me in such a
way that she encouraged my growth until I became her Mr. Right.

How to have a long and happy
relationship is not a secret, but it is not commonly known either,
because it’s not generally understood that “growing up” is not completed
at eighteen or twenty-one. In fact, it is never completed, no matter
how long we may live. Always striving for wholeness, completeness as a
human being will definitely give us the edge in living a long, exciting
and healthy life with Mr. or Mrs. Right. If that’s what you want, of
course. It would also give you a long, exciting, and healthy life of
whatever kind you choose. You see, P=A+G² is a formula for success in life, no matter what kind of a life you want.